


the purity of touch

by valety



Category: Odin Sphere
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Humour, POV Second Person, Sex Talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-10
Updated: 2017-01-10
Packaged: 2018-09-16 16:06:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9279263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valety/pseuds/valety
Summary: Gwendolyn and Oswald do not actually know how to do what a married couple is supposed to do. Oswald is fine with that. Gwendolyn is not.





	

**Author's Note:**

> imagine this taking place in some happy bubble right before armageddon where everyone is happy and alive and not even particularly upset with one another
> 
> warnings for discussion of consent issues and references to canon-typical misogyny

You had heard the way the other Valkyries had spoken of lying with men. They had done so with mingled scorn and resignation, as though it were but an inevitable indignity—one they would endure, but not without complaint. More than once you had come across your sister comforting some former warrior who had been made to bear it for the sake of a husband she had not wanted, and from these encounters, you had learned to dread the day you would be wed yourself.

You had learned little else.

The task of educating a young woman on the duties of a wife falls most naturally upon the shoulders of that young woman’s mother, and of course you’d had no mother. Griselda had been little help: for one, she had been too busy with her duties to have time to see to your education, and for another, she had hardly known much more than you. About men, that is—you had on one occasion as a child stumbled upon her locked in an embrace with one of her shield maidens, and although she’d chased you away with Gungnir shortly afterwards, you’d never quite been able to forget how impressively self-assured she’d seemed in the moment.

That confidence had gone against everything you’d ever been taught about Valkyries and love. Love was something damning, which bound you to the ground and left you flightless, yet Griselda had seemed to be soaring in that moment, as though that embrace had freed her more than wings alone ever could.  

The love you share with Oswald is a similar sort of love, you hope.

With Oswald, you forget the fear that you’d been taught by years of bitter experience. He doesn’t look at you like some prized thing to be captured and claimed, but instead with awe, touching you only with respect. He’s kinder than you’d ever dared to hope, despite his black reputation, and at last, one evening when you find him sitting in the library, you swallow down the last drop of your pride and say, “Oswald, I believe I may be ready.”

“For what?” he asks, looking up from the book he had been examining.

Your heart beats a little faster at the sight of such a soft expression on so drawn a face, but that doesn’t change the reason why you came.

You clasp your hands behind you so as to hide their trembling, saying a silent prayer of thanks that your skirts will hide your shaking legs. You may have swallowed down your pride, but that doesn’t mean that this is something you can easily discuss, particularly not when wariness and shame have been so thoroughly drilled into you since childhood.

“You have been kind to me,” you say haltingly. “Patient and tender. For that, I am grateful But…as I have said, I am ready. To…to do my duty by you as a wife.”

“There is nothing more I could ask of you,” Oswald replies sweetly. “You make me very happy, Gwendolyn.”

“I am glad,” you reply, blushing even more furiously. “But there is one thing that we have not done. That…that is….”

Your husband stares at you, looking comically befuddled, and at last you burst out with, “I’m talking about _consummating our marriage,_ Oswald.”

Inexplicably, his expression remains blank, and _how could you possibly make it any clearer?!_

For a moment you are struck with the overwhelming desire to grab a book from one of the nearby shelves and fling it at him with all your might. But at last a little colour comes into Oswald’s pale cheeks, and he asks, “Have we not already done that?”

For the span of a heartbeat, you can only stare.

“…done…that?” you repeat. “What do you mean?”

“By ‘consummate’, one usually means…making love, correct?” The pink in his cheeks has begun to bloom throughout his entire face, but you cannot laugh, not when you almost certainly match. “And...we’ve kissed. I am never as sure of my love for you as I am in those moments. Is…is that not what ‘making love’ means? Is there something more that we must do?”

“That cannot be it,” you murmur, almost to yourself. “The Valkyries always spoke of it as something painful.”

“Do you _want_ me to hurt you?” Oswald asks, sounding well and truly baffled now.

“No! Of course not! But I was prepared to endure, because I love you!” You say this somewhat defensively, but Oswald does not appear to notice your near-hostility, being too busy smiling foolishly into his lap at your words. “It sounded like something awful,” you continue, trying to ignore how increasingly flustered you’re becoming. “But it’s a wife’s duty, and of course I want to do my duty.”

“The Valkyries you knew were not happy in their marriages, were they?” Oswald ventures, lifting his head so that his eyes are once again meeting yours. “In Ringford, there were no such forced marriages, and I have never heard of ‘making love’ as being something particularly dreadful. Everyone seemed to enjoy it quite a bit, actually. The Queen herself had four lovers.”

 _“Four?_ That little girl?!” How far behind _are_ you?!

“Ah, no. The former Queen,” Oswald hastily explains. “Forgive me. But as I said, it never seemed to be something terrible. Perhaps the difference is—that it is not necessarily dreadful, so long as love actually enters into it?”

Once again, he is smiling foolishly, but he is no longer doing so into his lap, instead holding your gaze.

Your heart swells with such affection in that moment that you cannot bring yourself to push the topic further. Instead, you sweep forward that you may kiss him, and the subject is forgotten. Although privately, you resolve to seek a second opinion.

 

 

 

Myris dissolves into a blushing, stammering wreck when you attempt to question her, and so you let the matter go. You’re not normally one to give up so easily, but Myris is a friend, and you can’t bring yourself to command a coherent response when your questioning so obviously distresses her.

Unfortunately, that leaves you with very few options. It would be improper to speak of such matters with a man other than your husband, but you have very few surviving female acquaintances aside from the Valkyries, most of whom would be loathe to hold such a conversation with you. Or any conversation at all, really. Very few of them had found it in their hearts to forgive your various acts of treason.

There is the new Fairy Queen, you suppose. Technically you are acquaintances, and after you and your spear managed to convince her that you no longer pay allegiance to your father and truly had no intention of using Titrel against her kingdom, you were able to come to a sort of truce. But to you, she is a child still, no matter what Oswald says about how fairies age; you could not possibly ask a child something of this nature.

Thus, you are left with but a single option.

“I must confess, I had an ulterior motive for asking you here today,” you say one umber afternoon while sitting on the terrace of the old castle.

“What is it?” Velvet asks serenely, lifting a teacup to her lips. The two of you are sitting down to a tea that Myris had prepared in order to facilitate your playing at being proper noblewomen, rather than a pair of war-mongering witches feared across Erion. “You need only ask and I will do everything in my power to assist you.”

“What is meant by ‘making love’?”

Your guest does nothing so undignified as choke or splutter, but she _does_ set down her teacup with a rather violent _clack._

“I was not expecting _that,”_   Velvet says.  

“Nobody has ever told me what precisely it entails, only that it is a woman’s duty to her husband,” you explain. “I want to be a proper wife, but how am I meant to be one if I do not know?”

“By taking it upon yourself to learn, I suppose,” Velvet replies. Her voice is steady, but her shoulders are shaking now with what you suspect is suppressed laughter. “And so you came to me?”

“You will help me, won’t you?” you press. “You are knowledgeable in many things. I thought…”

“I suppose you could consider me knowledgeable in this as well,” Velvet concedes, eyes sparkling. “Why, in terms of practical experience alone, Cornelius and I—”

“I do not require any tales of your exploits,” you interrupt. Your cheeks may now be even hotter than your tea. You are getting very tired of blushing.

Velvet continues to smile, looking pleased with herself. But then a shadow falls over her face and she asks, “If this truly is your duty, then why was it not a part of your education?”

It is a question that has been troubling you as well, but you have yet to come to any sort of satisfactory conclusion. At last you say, “I suspect our husbands are meant to teach us.”

“And Oswald has not done so?” Velvet asks, still serene, but that serenity now has a mask-like quality that leads you to suspect she may be mere seconds away from seeking Oswald out and setting him on fire should your answer prove unsatisfactory. 

“He knows even less than I,” is your dry reply. “He thought we consummated our marriage by kissing.”

The mask falls away and Velvet’s mouth curves into a true smile. “That is almost adorable,” she says, sounding fond. “But...you realize that is not the case, yes?”

“I suspected as much,” you answer with a slight shrug. You don’t need to tell her how unsure you were until this very moment. “And so I come to you.”

Velvet, who had once again been taking a sip of tea, sets down her cup, this time with a far more dignified _click_ than before. She straightens her shoulders, adopting an attitude that’s almost businesslike, and says, “There are many reasons why one might choose to have sex. Duty should not be one of them.”

You blink. You would not go so far as to say that the very concept of doing something for a reason other than duty is anathema to you, but you’re certainly not used to hearing others speak to you in such a way. So much of your life has been consumed by duty that you occasionally forget that one can also do things simply because they want to.

“It does not sound as though your husband expects it of you, for which I am grateful,” Velvet adds. “He continues to prove himself a surprisingly decent man, and you _deserve_ a decent man, little sister. But even if he _did_ expect it of you, you would be under no obligation to oblige him, and I should hope that you would use your spear to remind him of who he owes his life to. Do you understand?”

“I believe so,” you answer humbly.

“Good,” Velvet says sweetly. “Then I will teach you. Now, to begin…”

 

 

 

The hours that follow find you listening with rapt attention, eyes wide and mouth hanging open as Velvet lectures you on biology, on potions that can protect you from getting with child and others that can rid you of ones you do not want, and on slang and positions and diseases. She does so without betraying even the slightest hint of embarrassment, answering every question you come up with readily and without condescension, and you cannot possibly conceive of why nobody had thought to tell you all this sooner.

“For many, sex is pleasurable,” Velvet says towards the end. “It can be something they partake in for fun, even without necessarily being in love with their partner. Conversely, one can love another without necessarily desiring sex from them. You may have been told to do otherwise, but I should hope that neither you nor Oswald would ever engage in something you did not mutually desire. And should you never desire it at all, then so long as you continue to make each other happy, then I do not think it matters.” 

You nod, feeling very much like a student in awe of a teacher whose brilliance they’ve only just been made fully aware of.

“Excellent,” Velvet says. “Then class dismissed.”

And she helps herself to the last nut cookie on your plate with a grin.

 

 

 

Oswald had been kind enough to give you and Velvet privacy, despite not knowing the precise nature of what it was you’d wanted to discuss with her. He gives no indication that he expects you to divulge the topic of your conversation, but that evening as you’re preparing for bed, you decide to make an attempt to share by asking him, “Are you at all curious about what we discussed?”

“Only if you want to tell me,” he mildly replies from his perch on the bed. You can see him in the reflection of your dressing table mirror as you brush your hair and nothing about his expression betrays any sort of irritation or impatience. He seems calm, satisfied with simply watching you.  

You turn on your stool so that you may see him properly. As always, there is something almost pure about his gaze, despite the shadows that still cling to him.

Although…it may just be that you perceive him that way due to your affection for him. You have no way of knowing. Perhaps love makes oblivious fools of everyone.

You will have to ask Velvet some other time.  

“Is there anything that you would like to do tonight?” you ask experimentally.

The way Oswald cocks his head is almost birdlike, and with a faint smile—he smiles often, around you— _because_ of you?—he says, “I should like to fall asleep with my wife in my arms. That is enough for me.”

You set down your pearl-handled brush and go to him in a rush of sweeping skirts. You kiss him long and deep, singing of your inexplicable relief through the touch of your lips on his, a feeling he returns through the curling of his hand around your neck.

You do, in fact, fall asleep that night in Oswald’s arms, and you are left secure in the knowledge that the two of you still have all the time in the world.


End file.
